Topic by tuck1s

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Topic: Good upgrade for very old Korg C3500?

Hi, we have a very old (20 years+) Korg C3500 digital home piano, 88 keys.  The sound generation is very dated (loads of digital buzz when you play on headphones) but the key weighting etc. still seems nice.

My son is the main player, and he's really fussy (he has piano lessons on a real acoustic grand - a 1960s Bechstein - then comes home & says the Korg is lousy).  He's working towards Grade 6, and is developing a nice touch.

He's tried various digital pianos in shops e.g. Roland, Yamaha, newer Korgs and he says none of them feel "real", not even the £5000+ Clavinovas.  So spending £2000 on a new digital seems a waste.

We've looked at acoustic uprights, but you definitely get what you pay for, and there are all the disadvantages e.g. needs tuning, much more space, probably needs to go on the ground floor (The Korg is on the 1st floor at the moment and we're short of space).

Is it worth us trying to get more out of the old Korg piano using Pianoteq? 

In which case I guess we're looking at:
£100 for Pianoteq Play
£30 for a USB Midi interface
£100 for some better active 2+1 loud speakers
possibly £60 for a low latency USB sound card
Plus optionally £300 for a laptop to make it work without having the main PC on

Comments and recommendations welcome!

Thanks in advance

Reply by fulvia

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Re: Good upgrade for very old Korg C3500?

I think if your son is fussy he may prefer the flexibility of the standard version or even pro version. I know it costs more, but the ability to edit the sounds is important if you are quite fussy about the end result.

Pianoteq will certainly offer the playability that sample-based pianos don't.

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Reply by mwinthrop

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Re: Good upgrade for very old Korg C3500?

I have a very old digital keyboard, also.  It is a Korg DP-3000c.  The sound is miserable on this keyboard and I have found that Pianoteq has made a big difference for me.  It has actually improved the feel on the keyboard for me, just because the software behaves so much like the real thing.  However, my keyboard is not quite like the real thing and never will be.   I am used to it, however, and it seems to be O.K.  I think Pianoteq would be worth considering. 

One thought, you might try out the evaluation version of Pianoteq for free.  There is a time limit and some keys are disabled, but if you did this, you might only need to purchase a midi-cable. This would keep your costs down while you decide if going this route will be helpful.

Reply by tuck1s

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Re: Good upgrade for very old Korg C3500?

Thanks for the replies.  A USB midi cable arrived yesterday, plugged it in and it works great.  The piano sound and 'feel' seem much improved to me ... now to see whether my son likes it!  So much better than the old Korg sound generation.

ASIO4ALL runs nicely on my main computer and is allowing me to set 256 samples latency which seems to give good playability.  Should I try to push the value even lower?

If I get a dedicated laptop to run Pianoteq, is modern on-board sound OK, or would that be a really bad idea?  Any particular chipsets known to be good or bad with ASIO4ALL?

Reply by mwinthrop

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Re: Good upgrade for very old Korg C3500?

I think the on board sound for a laptop is acceptable, though perhaps not as high quality as what is possible.  I have been using Pianoteq for 4 years or so on two different laptops with just the internal sound board and am happy with the sound quality.  I have been using ASIO4ALL in both cases without any issues.

I have seen other threads in this forum where people have recommended purchasing an external sound card, which provides better sound quality.  I have not tried this as I have not felt the need, so I don't have personal experience there.  I recommend reviewing those discussions.

Also, there has been much discussion on having low latency in other threads of this forum.  Might be worth looking at those, too.  I think latency ought to be set based on what feels right to the pianist and based on the capabilities of the computer.

My current set up is I am using an HP TX-1000 tablet computer to run Pianoteq.  I am also using the tablet features of this computer to allow me to display music on the screen and write notes on the music electronically.  There are good websites available for downloading classical music for free, which I use.  It works fairly well, though sometimes the sound stutters when changing pages (using a foot controller to change pages), so it might not be best for live performances, but is fine for practicing.  At any rate, be careful not to purchase any second hand laptops that have NVIDIA chips for displaying graphics, because these chips have a design flaw that causes premature failure of the graphics chips in the laptops, which is happening on my machine.  Here is a website that lists the affected computers and a class action settlement that is on going: http://www.nvidiasettlement.com/.  Other than that, I am not aware of any concerns when using a laptop with Pianoteq.